On Saturday, East Fife are the visitors to Somerset Park as Ayr United look to keep pace with leaders Raith Rovers at the top of League 1 ahead of the international break. Ian McCall’s men got back to winning ways with a 2-0 victory over Queen’s Park at the National Stadium last weekend but found themselves drop to third in the table behind Arbroath by virtue of the Red Lichties win at Somerset Park last time out, with the teams tied on points, goal difference and goals scored. East Fife, along with Albion Rovers, lie within one point.

East Fife have won their last two league fixtures without conceding. Last weekend, they defeated bottom side Forfar Athletic 3-0 at Bayview, with former Dumbarton midfielder Mark Docherty netting twice from the spot after Chris Duggan had opened the scoring the in the fourth minute. Another Docherty penalty was the only goal of the game a fortnight ago as Darren Young’s picked up all three points at Airdrie.

Team News: Alan Forrest, Robbie Crawford and Craig Moore are still out. Paddy Boyle comes back into the squad.

Ian says: “We were pleased last week to come away with three points after not playing anywhere near our best. Recently we haven’t taken full points when we should have so it is important to get results in different ways. We have given the boys a target so they know what we need to do over these next two matches at Somerset which bring up the end of the first quarter of matches. We need to win games at Somerset and make it difficult for teams to come here. If we can get the 3 points tomorrow we all know how important it would be as it would give us a 2 week break before the next match and will be hoping to have a full squad for it.”

Head to head (at Somerset Park):

Ayr United wins – 20

Draws – 10

East Fife wins – 4

United have won the last five meetings between the sides while the last eight fixtures have averaged 4.5 goals per game.

Last Meeting: The Honest Men were 4-1 winners at Somerset Park in the last encounter with East Fife, which came at the end of the 2013/14 season. Craig Malcolm netted a hat-trick for United with Brian Gilmour adding a fourth before Liam Buchanan netted late for the Fifers.

Match Officials:

Referee – Barry Cook

Assistant Referee 1 – Alasdair Ross

Assistant Referee 2 – Ross Hardie

Admission:

Adult – £16

Concessions (OAP, students & 18-21 year olds) – £10

Under 18s – £5

Armed Forces Day returns to Ayr United

All serving personnel, regular and reserves, Cadets and Veterans welcome.